Integrating remote sensing, spatial analysis and certainty factor model for waste dumping risk assessment

Waste dumping is one of the main pollution causing land deterioration and resource depletion. To help manage the environmental protection resource, this study proposed the risk assessment integrating remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS) to predict and map potential waste dumping area. Factors relative to waste dumping were generated with spatial analysis, which quantifies the spatial correlation between waste dumping areas and other land use. The suspected waste dumping mapping with FORMOSAT-2 imagery and hybrid classification was used as the other factor. All factors were then combined with certainty factor (CF) model to generate waste dumping risk map. Validating the result with the 45 waste dumping cases, CF model predicts 75.56% of the waste dumping cases in the very high potential area. The result demonstrated that integrating remote sensing, spatial analysis and CF model for waste dumping risk assessment could be reliable. Future applications include helping inspectors to concentrate the patrol areas, which could save manpower significantly.